Ifa ki i paro (Ifa never tells a lie)
Opele ki i seke (instrument used for divination is never false.)
Ifa ki i paro (Ifa never tells a lie)
Opele ki i seke (instrument used for divination is never false.)
Ohun ti yoo sele (The picture of the future)
N'Ifa ma nwi (Is what Ifa reveals)
N'Ifa ma nwi (Is what Ifa reveals)

Ifa ki i paro (Ifa never tells a lie)
Opele ki i seke (instrument used for divination is never false.)
Ifa ki i paro (Ifa never tells a lie)
Opele ki i seke (instrument used for divination is never false.)
Ohun ti yoo sele (The picture of the future)
N'Ifa ma nwi (Is what Ifa reveals)
N'Ifa ma nwi (Is what Ifa reveals)
N'Ifa ma nwi (Is what Ifa reveals)

Who stole the show
Who stole the show
Who stole the show
Where did it go

Where did it go, Where did it go
Where did it go, Where did it go
Where did it go, Where did it go
Where did it go, Where did it go

Who stole the show
Where did it go
Who stole the show
Where did it go
Who stole the show
Where did it go
Who stole the show
Where did it go
Who stole the show
Where did it go
Who stole the show
Where did it go

Sounds of the Universe

Many of our scientific and philosophical bases can be traced back to the Greeks. Pythagoras, in addition to making important discoveries about triangles, described the cosmos in terms of Music of the Spheres. He derived a set of pitch ratios, a succession of perfect fifths, to describe the orbits of the seven heavenly bodies around the earth (sun, moon, mercury, venus, mars, jupiter, saturn). To Pythagoras they implied universal harmony and order. The various ratios represented distances of these bodies from the earth, and the pitches were sung by sirenes who lived on them, inaudible to our mortal ears. He demonstrated them by plucking an instrument called a monochord to demonstrate ratios and pitches. The ratios remain with us today as the basis of our major scale.

While our understanding of the structure of the cosmos has matured since Pythagoras’ time, his fundamental tenet, that the universe is akin to a musical instrument, is borne out by the discoveries of many modern cosmologists.

Given the album’s theme of creating sound from cosmic vibrations, it seemed only appropriate to revisit Pythagoras. With more recent measurements of the planets from the sun, we created ratios of each planet’s distance from the sun compared with that of earth, transposed them to fall within a single octave, and used these as the basis of a nine-note scale (we made the artistic decision to include Pluto among the planets).

In an homage to Pythagoras’ monochord, these pitches were played with a sound resembling a plucked string. In addition, there is also a background swirling sound that reflects the relative orbit times of the planets. Earth is given a time of one second. This gives Mercury an orbit time of 4.15 swirls per second, while Pluto’s lasts 247 seconds. The pitch of the swirling matches that of the planet, with slight variations in pitch. This Doppler shift is what we hear when a car or train passes us and drops in pitch. The slight change in pitch reflects the faster speeds at which the planets move when they are near the sun, and reflects their elliptical orbits.

Thomas Stanley, The History of Philosophy (1655-1661)

These are the planet pitches in succession, starting with the earth, moving in to the sun, and then moving away:

NASA, ESA, and A. Simon (NASA/GSFC)

Also included in the mix are also contains sonifications of the whirlpool galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici (see Starlight Starbright for more on sonifying galactic spectra). The sound chosen for this galaxy is a whispery sparkle-like sound, to match its swirl with dots of red.

DATA SOURCE: Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics

"The hours spent with Fred were pure nourishment to me. Wherever we were—whether it was in Paris, London, or the Library of Congress—he had this great rhythm. I couldn’t imagine Fred on the dance floor, but with a book in his hand, he was Nureyev."This site is dedicated to my dear friend and colleague Fredric Lieberman. The man with the well stretched ear.